It’s been nine days since I’ve seen Joker: Folie à Deux, and honestly, I’m still not quite sure of what I witnessed. That night in the Opry Mills parking lot, talking it over with friends, I was pissed. I mean…I didn’t like the movie at all. Joaquin Phoenix was good as Arthur Fleck, but his performance hit a lot harder in Joker, when we hadn’t seen it before. I actually liked the musical numbers despite being a big anti-musical guy. I could certainly appreciate and respect the big swing that Todd Phillips took with this film, and from a technical standpoint, it was a home run – but it just wasn’t it for me. I wasn’t there for a boring courtroom drama with a variety show sprinkled on top of it in which nothing new happens. The movie served as an effective highlight reel for the first one, and it was downright boring despite having immense talent among the cast. As we hashed it all out in the Opry Mills parking lot, I realized it was just going to be one of those films that I had to really talk through in order to gain a sense of appreciation for. For better or for worse, it at least starts a conversation.
My problems with this film are in its storytelling and the snail-like pace we take to get to where we’re going. Even when we get there, the payoff just isn’t that interesting to me. Instead of new revelations about the character, or exploring new characters, we spend over two hours of our lives taking in the greatest hits of Joker between musical numbers. I found Lady Gaga’s talent to be vastly underutilized, with Harley Quinn serving as a bit of a one-note supporting character. Phillips really didn’t spend much time developing Quinn either. There’s a meta aspect to the film that made it better to me as time passed and I thought about it some more. We keep waiting for something to happen with the Joker character. It takes a while to get to him, and once we do, it’s kind of a disappointment. Not in Phoenix’s portrayal of the character – just that we never really see the character bust out of his Arthur Fleck shell and raise some hell. But, we are simply characters in the film in this regard. Phillips shows us this throughout the movie – the characters in this story, even Fleck’s staunchest supporters, just want The Joker. We’re no different, and in that, Phillips flips the mirror on us – we’re there, in theaters, with a bloodlust for mayhem, and he never gives it to us. Shame on us, I guess.
As troubled as he is, there is still a man there. Not only does no one seem to give a shit about him, but they actively hate him, and he’s treated like dirt…like he’s not even a person. Does he deserve that? Should we be more invested in his humanity? There’s an interesting moral debate to be had there, but do we care? Fuck no. We just want The Joker! I think it’s actually a clever bit of filmmaking from Phillips, and it did stop to make me think about why I was so disappointed in the film. Maybe the disappointment was the point of the whole thing. Maybe we’re gross people for our infatuation with this character and deserve to have our faces shoved in it. Ultimately, I come back to “I could think that’s a really cool way to have made this film without sitting through 138 minutes.” 2/5.
Our Buddy Brett joined Brandon Vick and myself for a brand new episode of The Vick’s Flicks Podcast as the three of us tried to process what we saw in this film.
If you haven’t had the chance to catch up on this show, you can check out the full episode of The Vick’s Flicks Podcast below! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Follow on Spotify, and wherever you take in your shows!
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
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